Java.May.2017

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PAINT IT OUT LOUD By Robert Sentinery BUZZ This month’s issue is strong in the visual arts—specifically painting. There seems to be a renewed interest in the art form that dates back 20,000 years to the caves of Lascaux. Despite the ever-growing digital sphere that has people glued to their phones, there is something powerful about the way paint on a wall or canvas speaks to us in an almost primal way. Even marketers have realized this, and we see a growing number of murals going up that are either hawking a specific product or enhancing commercial enterprises by adding a splash of color and an artist’s signature. All of this is good news, because anything that brings more art to the public and more money to artists’ pockets is a windfall. One of the newest and most striking murals to grace our city is located at 16th Street and Highland (just south of Camelback). It is the work of longtime brush pusher Tato Caraveo, whose intriguing surrealist-tinged paintings convey an otherworldly sensibility. The massive mural at the Crescent Highland apartment complex, visible to travelers northbound on 16th St., features a woman with flaming red hair holding a yellow birdhouse, surrounded by flowers, hummingbirds and butterflies. Come to find out, there are actually three Caraveo murals on site, and the developer is planning to commission more for projects in other cities (see “Tato Caraveo: Street Surrealism,” p. 8). Carrie Marill moved to Phoenix back in 2005 after getting her MFA in painting at Cornell University. In ’07 she met Lisa Sette at the “New American City” exhibition at ASU Art Museum. They formed a business relationship, and Sette has been representing Marill for close to a decade now. Marill’s work is based in an ongoing exploration of the technological versus the organic. She is fascinated by the infallibility of machine production versus the flaws of the human hand. Her latest show, back in January, explored crystal structures (nature’s geometric perfection). Marill also makes functional art, including a recent surfboard design that went into production, and she is having a show of her jewelry and wearable art at Framed Ewe/Phoenix General’s Shortcut Gallery, opening May 5. Marill’s @punkwasp Instagram feed is also an interesting glimpse into the artist’s headspace (see “Carrie Marill: Creative Rebel,” p. 12). JJ Horner’s exhibition Pattern Recognition is only the second one-person show at the new Megaphone PHX space on Central Ave. Horner moved to Phoenix from his hometown in Minnesota and was a regular fixture at the live painting nights at the Paper Heart in the early 2000s. His work has evolved, and he recently gained recognition for his murals at Flowers Beer and Wine, a Roosevelt Row haunt recently lost to gentrification. The Megaphone PHX show highlights similar works, tinged with surrealism and driven by subconscious meanderings. Several reoccurring themes appear in his work, including images of figures, animals, houses and space, and the surfaces are laden with hidden symbolism (see “JJ Horner’s Pattern Recognition: At Megaphone PHX,” p. 18).